A Day In the Sun
by musicalreader
Summary: My idea of what the time between Danny getting his powers and the first episode was like. lots of descriptions. also, this is my idea of how he learns to control his powers... initially. if you review, please be honest. i welcome neg. and pos. thanks, MR


_**A Day in the Sun**_

_**A Danny Phantom Short**_

By musicalreader

Danny woke up from his dreams shaking. In his head, the strangest thing had happened, his parents, professional ghost hunters, had built a portal to another dimension. But when it came time to activate it, there had been no reaction at all. When they went off to check the plans upstairs on the kitchen table, he got out one of the emergency jumpsuits and wandered in to try and figure out for himself. Had they simple forgotten to turn it on, like so many times in the past with their other inventions? As he zipped up the suit and walked in, he had to guide himself with his hand along the wall so that he didn't trip over anything. All of a sudden, he felt a small raised circle and pressed it by accident, when he did that, the entire portal exploded in a burst of light and the sound was close to a jet hitting supersonic.

All around him were nightmarish visions as his dream turned into a nightmare. He saw images that were either too strange to be human, or too old to be still alive. It was like he had been tossed into a place of imagination and fear. He saw floating chunks of land suspended in the air and the inhabitants flying out of the windows like it was perfectly normal. All this his mind processed in an instant, and the next second, he was struck by an intense sensation of pain as it felt like he was being hammered by an infinite number of microscopic needles. His insides boiled and his skin crawled in a wave of heat.

As he looked down at his body, he saw the jumpsuit change colors, like he was a negative, as a ring of light washed over him. The next thing he knew, the strange world went fuzzy and when his head cleared, he was on the floor of the basement workshop. He sat up and looked at his hands again and saw that his suit still looked like a negative, so he rushed over to the mirror. Luckily, his skin had somehow remained the same, but his hair and eyes were totally different! In place of his usual blue eyes and black hair, he looked like… well like a ghost. His hair was as white as a sheet of paper, and his eyes… they actively glowed a bright green.

He clenched his eyes and tried not to cry as he imagined the change being permanent. He wanted to be his old self so bad… suddenly, the glowing rings appeared again and before he could react, they had passed over him again and he stood in the basement like normal. The next thing he knew, he felt lightheaded and was waking up from his dreams with a huge headache. Danny glanced over at the clock and saw that he had overslept by about three hours!

"Shit!" he exclaimed, jumping out of bed, looking down to realize that he had slept in his clothes. Small graces…

He tore down the stairs and was about to make it out the door when he was stopped by his dad. A huge guy of about 7 feet and 300 pounds of muscle…and fudge, lots and lots of fudge.

"Danny…" he said, blocking the door easily, "Where are you going son?"

"Uhhh, I was going to hang out with Tucker and Sam." he answered, still a little surprised to see his dad out of the lab this early in the day.

"Oh no you're not…You're staying inside today mister." Mr. Fenton said with a note of finality, "Now march right back up those stairs and you get some rest. Judging from yesterday's fainting incident, I'd say you need it."

"Fainting incident!" Danny asked, clearly confused. "What do you mean?"

"Why you remember, it was right after your mom and I went to double check the specs on the portal. We came back down and it was on and you were asleep!" his dad answered, smiling.

"So…you and mom actually made a portal to the Ghost-Zone?" Danny asked.

"You bet we did!" he exclaimed, "Must have been a delay on the on/off switch though… in any case, you looked exhausted, so your mom and I agreed that you should stay in and rest today."

"Great Dad…" Danny said evasively, "But I have to meet up with Tucker and Sam for an, uhhh, school project…"

Jack blinked a few times as he processed this and then he smiled, "Well okay then. Good to see you're taking an interest in your education son." And with that, he moved out of the way to let Danny rush out the front door.

"Ah, it's good to see him caring about his grades…" Jack said to himself as he shut the door behind his son and started to head down to the lab, which now had a new portal! "Now where did I put that thermos I was working on..."

Danny tore off down the streets of Amity park until he finally found an alley he could try and sort things out in. so last night really happened… okay… he could deal with that. But was he imagining everything that happened after? Could he really change his appearance with a thought? He had to try.

He pictured how he looked after he went into the portal. He remembered the beams of light that circled him and seemed to make his skin crackle. He pictured the black suit with the white bands on it that made him look like a negative. And then he remembered his own face in the mirror. The shock white hair and eerie green eyes peering back. All of a sudden, the halos of light appeared and went over his entire body, simultaneously dissolving his usual clothes and changing his appearance into what he had been the night before. The whole process took less than a second, and he soon found himself standing in the alley a different person.

"Whoohoo!" Danny cried in joy, after all, he now knew he wasn't crazy.

All of a sudden, there was a noise at the back of the alley. A person was clambering towards him like he was a demon. When a streak of the sunlight hit the encroacher's hand, Danny saw a flash of metallic light. Whoever it was was coming at him with a knife, or worse! He suddenly found himself wishing that he hadn't changed in the alley after all. He wanted to run, but his feet refused to move. He tried to stay still and just not be seen, but his new hair was giving him away. Suddenly, a thought hit him… if he could change forms just by willing it… why not try something else?

He closed his eyes and concentrated again. This time, instead of picturing how he was, he imagined himself not even being there. Not just invisible, but nobody could touch him. He pictured his limbs passing through solid objects, and nobody freaking out because they couldn't even see him. His skin tingled again, and he opened his eyes to see that… well, rather, he couldn't see himself. He knew he was there because he could feel his hands at his sides, but when he moved them, even towards a solid brick wall, he couldn't feel his hand make contact. All he could make out was a small distortion where he assumed his hand was, and the indefinable feeling that it had gone straight through.

"What the hell?" the man with the knife said, "Where'd you go brat?"

Danny remained silent, not sure how long he could keep up the invisible act.

"I know you're there… I just saw you. What are you…" the man muttered to the open alley.

"Jerry, come on back here and grab a bite." A voice called form the shadowy back of the alley, "There's nobody there. You're probably just drunk again."

"I ain't drunk!" the guy known as Jerry answered angrily, "I saw a kid I tell ya. And he transformed!"

"Sure Jerry sure… now how about you come on back and we'll talk all about it." the voice said.

Jerry looked around the alley once more, his gaze hovering a little longer where Danny actually stood, and finally trudged back to where he came from.

He breathed a sigh of relief, and decided to see just what else he could do with his new powers. He stepped towards the wall and actually walked through the brick and the pipes like they weren't even there. The best he could think of, it was like passing through liquid… when he came out on the other side, he saw that he was in a closet of some kind and, when he was sure it was safe, willed himself back to being visible and solid. Finally able to see his appendages, he sat down on a bucket and thought out loud to himself.

"Okay… so the portal was real. The change in looks was definitely real. And now I can go invisible and intangible. So far I have some pretty cool powers… but what else can I do?" he asked himself.

After thinking over a dozen different scenarios, he finally came to the conclusion that he had somehow absorbed ghost powers when he turned the portal on. "And if I have ghost powers…" he reasoned, "Then that must mean I can fly too!"

Danny stood up and willed himself out of the visible spectrum yet again and walked through the wall and out into the alley again to test out his new idea.

"If all I had to do before was think about it… maybe I just have to imagine flying to make it happen…" and with that, he shut his eyes and imagined being in space. Weightless and free form the planet's gravity, he felt free… he opened his eyes and discovered that not only did he feel weightless, but he was a full ten feet off the ground!

"Alright!" he exclaimed, "Now let's try steering…" and with that, he tried to position himself in the air. He finally succeeded when he stopped trying to swim in midair and actually moved his whole body, imagining his waist to be the fulcrum.

"Cool…" Danny muttered when he was righted, "But how do I move?"

He struggled for several minutes with actually moving with any speed above a crawl. When he jokingly posed like Superman and discovered that the pose actually made him shoot off where he wanted to go, he tried it for real.

"I'm doing it!" he cried out, racing up and over the city, "I'm flying!"

He curved his flight path by shifting his weight and the position of his arms. He could work on the fine tuning of his new powers later, but for now, the effort of using them was exhausting. Not only that, but he had to tell Tucker and Sam about all this… but how? Then another thought occurred to him… when Sam found out, she would make sure he didn't try anything like pranks, or personal gain… so maybe he would try and have some fun first. Then he'd tell his friends. And with that though in mind, he raced across the sky to run a few, long overdue errands…

His first stop was at the house of the school's resident bully, and the personal tormentor of Danny and his friends since middle school. But today would be different, today Dash was going to get a little well deserved payback…

He concentrated for a second and felt his skin tingle as he became invisible and intangible. When he double checked that he couldn't be seen, he flew into Dash's room and solidified at the foot of his bed where he lay reading a muscle magazine… big surprise there… An idea came to him and he concentrated on solidifying just his arms. When he could feel the tingling on his skin, Danny grabbed the corner of Dash's bed and lifted up with all his strength.

"Whoa! What the hell?" Dash called out as he tumbled out of his bed, "W-who's there?"

"_Dash… this is the consequences of your actions." _Danny said trying his best for a creepy voice. "_When you hurt your fellow students… I will be here to hurt you!"_

"Shhyeah right!" Dash retorted, trying to sound brave, but lacking his usual bravado, "Why should I believe you? for all I know, this is a dream!"

"Does this look like a dream to you?" Danny shouted angrily, trying not to laugh as he picked up one of Dash's trophy's and shatter it against the ground.

Dash screamed like a seven year old girl. "You jerk!" he yelled, flailing his arms out, trying to get a hold of the invisible tormentor, "When I get my hand on you… I'll make you pay!"

Well… I tried…" Danny muttered to himself, "I'd better get out of here before he starts throwing stuff though…" and with that he flew back outside to test his new limits further.

Danny watched the afternoon sun sink over the town of Amity Park and basked in the afterglow of all the things he had gotten accomplished that day… after he was done with Dash, he had flown over to his school, Casper High, and decided to take advantage of his new invisibility by checking out the girl's locker room… he was going to have to work on wiping the grin off his face before he went home. And after that, he had played a few jokes on his Sister and his Dad. It was going great until his Dad picked up one of the few weapons that actually worked and started shooting… it was a good thing his dad was a horrible shot. And just to top the day's events off, he had even snuck into a movie and hung out on the ceiling while he watched the latest slashtastic, blood soaked horror movie.

While he was enjoying the new powers, he couldn't help but feel like he had forgotten something… "Oh shit!" Danny said suddenly, "I need to tell the guys…" and with that, he changed into his new form once again and flew off to his friend Tucker's house.

When he finally touched down outside his friend's house, he switched back and rang the doorbell.

"Hold on a minute!" Tucker yelled from behind the door.

When the door finally swung in, Danny saw one of his oldest friends standing there in his usual red beret and backpack full of technology. "What's up Tuck?" he asked.

"Nothing much dude, come on up." And he led Danny up to his room where Sam was also waiting.

"Well well well…look who decided to show up." Sam teased from her spot on the floor, where her and Tucker had been looking at a magazine together. "So what took you all day?"

"You guys aren't going to believe this…" Danny said, shutting the door behind him and isolating them from prying ears, "But you know how yesterday my parents were going to turn on the portal they've been working on?"

"Yeah…" Sam answered, "What of it?"

"Well, when they tried to turn it on, it didn't work right. So I went inside it to try and see if I could fix it while they went back up to the kitchen, and, well, long story short I have superpowers." He explained, watching their faces for their reactions.

Tucker and Sam exchanged a glance, and in unison grabbed their sides and started rolling on the floor laughing. Danny stood there and waited for them to calm down so he could continue, but when they wouldn't stop, he decided a show was in order…

Sam and Tucker gasped as he closed his eyes and the now familiar rings of light ran across his body and he changed his appearance.

"Holy crap Danny… is that really you?" Sam asked, "You weren't kidding…"

"I told you guys, I have superpowers." He reminded, smiling.

"Wait, you mean to tell me that you had these since last night and you are finally getting over here to tell us?" Tucker said angrily… "What the hell were you doing the rest of the time?"

"Tucker, relax." Sam chided, looking at Danny expectantly, "I'm sure he was just testing his new powers out… speaking of which, what can you actually do Danny?"

This was the moment that he had been waiting for. "Check this out you guys…" and he opened up Tucker's window, which luckily enough for them, opened up over a steep drop onto an empty side street. "Tucker, if I hit the ground from this height, what happens to me?"

Tuck pulled out his PDA and did some quick math, "If you fall from there, you're gonna end up like a puddle on the asphalt…"

"Perfect!" Danny responded, and jumped out the window.

"DANNY! NOOO!" his friends screamed, lunging for the window and looking down to see… an empty street?

"Looking for me?" Danny's voice called from in the air over the window.

"Dude?" Tucker asked, "Are you flying? Where are you?"

"Oops, sorry guys, forgot I was invisible there… hold on." And with that, he reappeared, this time a good five feet over the window. "Pretty cool hunh?" he asked, relaxing in the air.

"I'll say!" Sam answered, "You can fly now?"

"And turn invisible too…" Danny elaborated, "But the best is this…" he said with a smile and flew straight into the ground, disappearing under the asphalt

"Where'd he go?" Tucker asked nervously… jumping out of his skin when his friend appeared right behind him and whispered "Boo!"

When Sam was done laughing and Tucker was done yelling at him for the trick, Danny explained to them in more detail what had happened to him in the portal and what he could do.

"So, you can sneak into movies now without ever being caught?" Tucker asked.

"Already did that…" Danny bragged, "And by the way, you guys will love the _**Trinity of Doom**_ special they're showing."

"You already saw it?" Sam exclaimed, "Man… I thought we were going to see that together…"

"Sam!" Tucker said, "Don't you realize that this means he could probably get us in too?"

""Pretty much…" Danny agreed, "I haven't really tried it out yet, but I think I could pass on the powers if I'm touching someone else…"

"Fine… so you have all these cool powers now… so what are you going to do with them?"

Danny hadn't considered that. Hadn't even really thought about what kinds of powers he had.

"Do you even know what types of powers you have?" Sam asked, as always seeming to know what was on his mind.

"Uhhh… no." he admitted bashfully. "But they probably have something to do with where I got them from right?"

"Probably," Tucker agreed, "You said you got them after you came out of the portal your folks built right?"

"Yeah…" Danny answered.

"And if they built a portal to that Ghost-Zone they're always talking about, then maybe you have ghost powers!"

"Invisibility, Intangibility, Flight… sounds like a ghost to me." Sam agreed, appraising Danny's new costume, which even he had to admit didn't leave much to the imagination.

"So what are you guys saying?" he asked, concerned slightly, "You think I'm half ghost?"

"Sounds like it dude!" Tucker said excitedly. "So I guess you're a superhero now!"

"Whoa…" Danny muttered, "I'm a hero…"

"At least part time…" Sam agreed, "Don't forget, you're also a kid like us."

"Uh hunh…" he grunted in reply, still trying to wrap his mind around his new purpose. "So what you're saying is that I'll have two lives…half of me is going to have to hide in the shadows…"

"Looks that way dude." Tucker comforted, "And you'll have me and Sam to help back you up.

"Besides," Sam said, putting her arm around Danny's shoulders, "You don't have to be selfless all the time, you can still have fun…"

"True." He agreed, looking out the window at the last rays of light fading into the horizon, his two best friend next to him, "Besides, I already had my day in the sun didn't I?"

The ghost called Skullker was on the outer edges of the vortex that was his, and countless other's home. He had been having a very productive day of hunting when the oddest thing caught his attention… a child materialized about a hundred yards away from his island for all of a second. If his scanners hadn't been up, he might have even missed it. But before he could capture the interloper and interrogate him, violently, he was gone, seemingly sucked out of the void by a vortex that seemed to emanate from around him. When he looked again, after a flash of light, he realized that the vortex hadn't been an illusion after all… there was now a new portal!

Portals were a surprise for all ghosts to find. They let them get out and onto the Plane of the living, which was always good for a few laughs at the cost of the denizens. And each one was unique. Some lasted for years, others forever, and some for instants… this one was still around, so it obviously had some stability, all he had to do was test it out… he reached down for his belt and pulled out the collapsible cage. He would send out a drone, that would be a good test… and if it didn't survive the trip through, which sometimes happened, then it was better that it wasn't him.

"Now, which of you will make a good drone…?" Skullker wondered out loud, as he perused the day's catch.

"Ahhh…" he sighed, "You'll do nicely, and if you cooperate and report back, I'll set you free."

The ghostly octopi he pulled out screeched and thrashed when he grabbed them, but calmed down when they heard that they had a chance to go free. He could see their little minds working out the truth in his statement. And when they came to the conclusion that he was sincere, they nodded and relaxed as he slipped one of his shock rings around their necks.

"That's to make sure you actually come back…" he justified, "Now GO!" and with that he flung them towards the portal.

Today was a good day indeed….

_**Here's my second story for Danny Phantom… I hope you enjoyed it. I wanted to do a story before the first episode to show how he came to at least discover himself and his new abilities. I hope you liked it, and as a general announcement, I am going to start on my first multi chapter story. It will be called **_**"**Patterns in Time**"** _**or something else of the like… in any case, I hope you'll tell me what you think of this story so I'll know how to improve. You read it… please review it. And as always,**_

Happy Reading,

musicalreader


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